What is Integrated Pest Management?

Integrated Pest Management - better known as IPM -
was introduced on a large scale in Indonesia in the late
1980s and is now being promoted by FAO in more than 40
countries worldwide. IPM enables farmers to monitor and
control the pests in their fields, keeping the use of
expensive and potentially damaging and dangerous chemical
pesticides to an absolute minimum.

In developing countries, under village conditions, safe use
of hazardous pesticides is practically impossible.
Protective clothing is prohibitively expensive, and the
tropical heat makes it almost unwearable. A 1993 study in
Indonesia showed that 21 percent of spraying operations
resulted in three or more symptoms associated with pesticide
poisoning. Eighty-four percent of farmers were also found to
be storing chemicals in their homes, in unsafe conditions
where children could reach them.

In the words of an Indonesian publication about IPM :
"The IPM Program ... [gives] farmers the tools to
make their own informed decisions, so they do not waste
their resources, risk their health, harm their crops, or
damage the environment."

Field-based training

In order to train farmers effectively in IPM, an
innovative, field-based, participatory training technique
was developed - the Farmers' Field School (FFS). Meeting
once a week for a 12-week crop season, from transplant to
harvest, farmers learn the basic science and the techniques
on which successful IPM is based. Their first task is to
plant an experimental rice field which will be their
classroom.

In this field they will study plant health, water
management, weather, weed density and disease. They will
also collect and draw pictures of the different bugs they
find in the field, learning to distinguish between "pests"
and "beneficials" - the predators that keep the pests'
numbers down.

There are three main types of rice pest:

stem borers

leaf folders

seed bugs

Stem borers cause visual damage but little yield loss.
Leaf folders limit the plant's ability to photosynthesize by
literally folding the leaves up. But a rice plant can
tolerate up to 10 percent of its leaves being "folded"
without yield loss. Seed bugs don't usually reach high
enough numbers to cause yield loss.

Often, when untrained farmers see the superficial damage
caused by pests that will not actually affect their
harvests, they spray with pesticide, in the belief that
their crop is under threat. Obviously, when rice prices are
soaring, farmers are particularly anxious to protect their
crops at all costs.

Cambodia:
farmers draw the pests they have found in the field
(FAO/19702/G. Bizzarri)

Alternative pest control measures

Farmers also learn alternative pest control techniques
that they can use when crops are under threat. These include
physically removing and destroying pests, building up the
populations of beneficial predators, setting out pest traps,
and rotating and diversifying crops. Cultivation of
pest-resistant crop varieties is also encouraged. The use of
limited quantities of narrow spectrum insecticides against
certain types of pests is kept as a last resort.

Peer support and discussion vital to sustainable
change

Group work and group problem-solving and decision-making
is essential to the FFS programme. "Peer support and peer
discussions are vital for sustainable behaviour change,"
said FAO's Senior IPM Officer, Kevin Gallagher. "IPM is a
new technology for many farmers and on your own it's
difficult to make such a change."

Observing the life of the field, farmers are able to see
firsthand what is meant by "ecological balance". They
observe the food chain, and most crucially, they see that an
unsprayed field is not necessarily devastated by pest
outbreaks. They also see that rice plants can sustain some
pest damage without yield being affected. Farmers are able
to measure the yield of the experimental field against their
own yields, and to weigh up the cost of pesticides they have
applied against the cost of extra time spent in the fields
monitoring the siutation.

But IPM is not based on a static set of rules. It is a
dynamic, farmer-driven approach to solving today's problems
- which may be different from yesterday's and from
tomorrow's - in the field.

According to FAO's Andrew Bartlett, "a new type of IPM
training programme has evolved over the years in Asia and we
have given the name 'Community IPM' to the type of
locally-driven programmes which are emerging".

Community IPM is about farmers organising and
implementing IPM activities, and becoming the instigators of
IPM rather than the recipients. It is about group action
that uses the agro-ecological concepts of IPM to analyse
problems, design field studies and carry out experiments.
Above all, community IPM is about farmers joining forces to
promote and protect farming practices that they know are
healthier and more efficient in the fields.